Looking for New Product Ideas? Can We Talk?

As I explained in Part 1, the most dependable new product ideas are totally organic in origin, meaning they are originated by people who want the new product as much for their own use as for others. The best ideas come from real personal need, not concepts or abstractions. To this end, I am surprised so few publishers encourage people to bring them their new product ideas: it’s free market research, and the really good ideas tend to be easy to spot.

Of course, you can’t depend entirely on a passive source like this. That’s why many publishers make an effort to talk to their customers. It doesn’t take a lot of conversations to start hearing about marketplace needs and opportunities. While the idea of talking to customers for new product ideas is well-known, your success depends in large part on how you go about it.

It’s surprisingly difficult to get productive conversations going with your customers. First, you have to get a meaningful amount of time from them, which gets harder every day. Second, you have to enter the conversation without preconceived notions or biases. Third, the conversation needs to be open-ended to allow the customer to take it in any direction. When a customer volunteers something like “but what I could really use is …” you have struck gold. You can have conversations by phone, though in-person conversations are always the best. And please don’t think that sending out an online survey in any way substitutes for customer conversations.

The good news is, yes, customers will tell you what they want, and they’ll do it happily. If multiple customers suggest the same new product idea, you’ve probably got a winner.